Einstein and the Cosmic Man

[Nick_A]

If heaven is real, then why the hell do we need this shithole in the first place?

Trix, why pick on poor mother earth in this way? Is it really a shithole or are we responsible for messing up her home? Maybe the real question is why mother earth needs humanity to destroy her creation.

Dude. Lions eat deer alive before humans even dumped 1000 bottles of trash into the ocean. This world sucks.

But what if life on earth is serving a universal purpose? Organic life on earth is a large living machine that eats itself and reproduces in order for it to carry out its purpose of transforming substances. Animal man is part of this creature. Is that the limit of human evolution or can a person become more than just an animal playing its part in a living machine?

Life on earth may suck but do we have to be suckers or does Man have other possibilities?

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

You are describing expressions of earthly emotions. Religious emotions in contrast are experienced when consciously experience the connection between above and below or levels of reality. That is why these feelings are considered sacred. The current issue of Parabola deals with this connection from different perspectives. For those interested in the question of the sacred it is an issue well worth reading.

But you have not told me how you tell the difference between "religious emotions" and non-religious emotions. How do you know that you are experiencing " the connection between above and below or levels of reality" ? You obviously think that you are experiencing it. Emotions are experienced with our bodies. Which part of your body experiences " the connection between above and below or levels of reality " ?

"the connection between above and below or levels of reality" does not sound like an emotion, it sounds like an idea.

Perhaps you mean that you think of " the connection between above and below or levels of reality " and then you get the feeling which you call the religious emotion. I can sort of understand that, as sometimes people get the religious feeling from looking at a religious icon, or being alone in a cathedral. Some people get the feeling from grand scenes in nature. The feeling is sometimes called numinous, a feeling of awe.

[Dubious]

1930
Yes. If there are no creatives, what will the builders build? Then again, if there are no builders, what of substance will the creatives create?

Frustration with subjectivity?

Are inconvenient questions inevitably ignored?

When our subjectivity doesn't offer the experience of meaning needed by the depth of the heart it is more than frustrating. It can even lead to both psychological and physical suicide. The feeling is of being in a prison and the intellect only offers a larger prison. How can we get out of our own way long enough to become open to the knowledge our subjectivity prevents?

...not by depending on "the heart" and the usual idealistic mush it defaults to when the intellect is stymied or forced to scrutinize an inconvenient truth. The heart as a metaphor for subjectivity, doesn't discover anything. That's what "intellect" is for! It's what Einstein and everyone else used to create their theories with. His heart discovered nothing! What came from there has very little value by comparison. So, I wouldn't be too harsh on the intellect. Without it we would always be at the beginning!

[Nick_A]

Are inconvenient questions inevitably ignored?

When our subjectivity doesn't offer the experience of meaning needed by the depth of the heart it is more than frustrating. It can even lead to both psychological and physical suicide. The feeling is of being in a prison and the intellect only offers a larger prison. How can we get out of our own way long enough to become open to the knowledge our subjectivity prevents?

...not by depending on "the heart" and the usual idealistic mush it defaults to when the intellect is stymied or forced to scrutinize an inconvenient truth. The heart as a metaphor for subjectivity, doesn't discover anything. That's what "intellect" is for! It's what Einstein and everyone else used to create their theories with. His heart discovered nothing! What came from there has very little value by comparison. So, I wouldn't be too harsh on the intellect. Without it we would always be at the beginning!

Do you agree with or deny what Einstein describes as the necessary unification of intellectual and emotional intellignce to acquire human understanding?

Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other, nevertheless there exist between the two strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies. Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Are we really destined to live a life as either a blind or lame person? Is it really so naive in your eyes to consider the potential unification of facts through science and the experience of objective "meaning" revealed through the emotional perception of our connection to higher consciousness as a normal human being?

Technology as an expression of objective human values. What could be more absurd to the modern belief that we create our own values. Talk about annoying the Great Beast. That idea will do it.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote:

You are describing expressions of earthly emotions. Religious emotions in contrast are experienced when consciously experience the connection between above and below or levels of reality. That is why these feelings are considered sacred. The current issue of Parabola deals with this connection from different perspectives. For those interested in the question of the sacred it is an issue well worth reading.

But you have not told me how you tell the difference between "religious emotions" and non-religious emotions. How do you know that you are experiencing " the connection between above and below or levels of reality" ? You obviously think that you are experiencing it. Emotions are experienced with our bodies. Which part of your body experiences " the connection between above and below or levels of reality " ?

"the connection between above and below or levels of reality" does not sound like an emotion, it sounds like an idea.

Perhaps you mean that you think of " the connection between above and below or levels of reality " and then you get the feeling which you call the religious emotion. I can sort of understand that, as sometimes people get the religious feeling from looking at a religious icon, or being alone in a cathedral. Some people get the feeling from grand scenes in nature. The feeling is sometimes called numinous, a feeling of awe.

Is a fanatical religious expression like Islamic terrorism reacting from religious emotion or egoistic negative emotion? Briefly put, normal animal emotions put us at the center. I, I, I. Animal emotions either support or hinder our personal beliefs. In contrast deeper religious emotions do not support or hinder our opinions of ourselves. They begin to get behind the emotions of our personality that create our egoistic opinions.

You mentioned awe. It is a religious feeling since temporarily we experience something greater than ourselves making our personal conditioned opinions meaningless. There is us and something greater: two levels of reality

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

Is a fanatical religious expression like Islamic terrorism reacting from religious emotion or egoistic negative emotion? Briefly put, normal animal emotions put us at the center. I, I, I. Animal emotions either support or hinder our personal beliefs. In contrast deeper religious emotions do not support or hinder our opinions of ourselves. They begin to get behind the emotions of our personality that create our egoistic opinions.

You mentioned awe. It is a religious feeling since temporarily we experience something greater than ourselves making our personal conditioned opinions meaningless. There is us and something greater: two levels of reality

As usual you attribute a good idea to the wrong object. 'By their fruits you shall know them' and
'Do as you would be done by' are good ideas as you implied. But animal emotions is the wrong object of blame. We all have and need (animal) emotions to stay alive. Jesus too had animal emotions.

Islamic terrorists probably lack insight into their rages. The object of their rages is people who hold beliefs other than their own beliefs. It is when wrong beliefs are added on to (animal) emotions that the emotions are dangerous to self and others.

Dogmatic attachment to indoctrinated beliefs is the terrorists' speciality. These indoctrinated beliefs are added to the unreason of a medieval religious worldview.

I agree with you about awe. One can feel religious awe , and at other times focus the mind on reason. Religious awe is inspiring, and reason is the servant of truth. We need both inspiration and truth. And we also need (animal) emotions like we need arms and legs.

[Belinda]

Nick_A wrote:

Is a fanatical religious expression like Islamic terrorism reacting from religious emotion or egoistic negative emotion? Briefly put, normal animal emotions put us at the center. I, I, I. Animal emotions either support or hinder our personal beliefs. In contrast deeper religious emotions do not support or hinder our opinions of ourselves. They begin to get behind the emotions of our personality that create our egoistic opinions.

You mentioned awe. It is a religious feeling since temporarily we experience something greater than ourselves making our personal conditioned opinions meaningless. There is us and something greater: two levels of reality

As usual you attribute a good idea to the wrong object. 'By their fruits you shall know them' and
'Do as you would be done by' are good ideas as you implied. But animal emotions is the wrong object of blame. We all have and need (animal) emotions to stay alive. Jesus too had animal emotions like he had arms and legs.

Islamic terrorists probably lack insight into their rages. The object of their rages is people who hold beliefs other than their own beliefs. It is when wrong beliefs are added on to (animal) emotions that the emotions are dangerous to self and others.

Dogmatic attachment to indoctrinated beliefs is the terrorists' speciality. These indoctrinated beliefs are added to the unreason of a medieval religious worldview.

I agree with you about awe. One can feel religious awe , and at other times focus the mind on reason. Religious awe is inspiring, and reason is the servant of truth. We need both inspiration and truth. And we also need (animal) emotions like we need arms and legs.

[Nick_A]

Nick_A wrote:

Is a fanatical religious expression like Islamic terrorism reacting from religious emotion or egoistic negative emotion? Briefly put, normal animal emotions put us at the center. I, I, I. Animal emotions either support or hinder our personal beliefs. In contrast deeper religious emotions do not support or hinder our opinions of ourselves. They begin to get behind the emotions of our personality that create our egoistic opinions.

You mentioned awe. It is a religious feeling since temporarily we experience something greater than ourselves making our personal conditioned opinions meaningless. There is us and something greater: two levels of reality

As usual you attribute a good idea to the wrong object. 'By their fruits you shall know them' and
'Do as you would be done by' are good ideas as you implied. But animal emotions is the wrong object of blame. We all have and need (animal) emotions to stay alive. Jesus too had animal emotions like he had arms and legs.

Islamic terrorists probably lack insight into their rages. The object of their rages is people who hold beliefs other than their own beliefs. It is when wrong beliefs are added on to (animal) emotions that the emotions are dangerous to self and others.

Dogmatic attachment to indoctrinated beliefs is the terrorists' speciality. These indoctrinated beliefs are added to the unreason of a medieval religious worldview.

I agree with you about awe. One can feel religious awe , and at other times focus the mind on reason. Religious awe is inspiring, and reason is the servant of truth. We need both inspiration and truth. And we also need (animal) emotions like we need arms and legs.

Why blame? The Man animal lives by animal emotions. The point is that Man is capable of more than just reactive animal emotions and their perversion into negative emotions. We are not born with negative emotions. They are acquired habits which govern much of our lives.

Animal love for example is a reaction. There is nothing bad about it and no reason to blame anything. It is selective. We love this and not that as a reaction. However Man has the potential for the love of life itself. Where animal love is a REACTION, this quality of love is a conscious ACTION. It is a potential only possible for conscious human beings or the evolved cosmic man.

This thread is about the potential for man's conscious evolution from animal man living in Plato's cave into cosmic man. It isn't about training animal man but the potential for animal man to awaken to a conscious human perspective with emotional intelligence worthy of the name "Man."

As Einstein wrote:

"The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he want to experience the universe as a single significant whole. The beginnings of cosmic religious feeling already appear at an early stage of development, e.g., in many of the Psalms of David and in some of the Prophets. Buddhism, as we have learned especially from the wonderful writings of Schopenhauer, contains a much stronger element of this."

Most want to argue details. A minority want to experience and become capable of the conscious perspective beginning with universal wholeness. The world is on the side of selective animal training and arguing details. I support the minority and especially the young who are vulnerable to spirit killing in the attempt to make them "normal."

[Belinda]

Nick, it's reason that transforms reactive emotions into good feelings.

[Dubious]

Do you agree with or deny what Einstein describes as the necessary unification of intellectual and emotional intellignce to acquire human understanding?

What pray is it supposed to be “unified” into? Psychology is not physics or cosmology. That there should be a proper “balance” between intellect and the emotions has long, long, very long been understood before Einstein ever trod planet earth! It’s obviously a trained intellect that must supervise the emotions as essential to understanding based on reason.


Quote: Einstein
science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I don’t regard Einstein as an additional member of the Trinity as so many seem to. This statement is merely clever but lame where reality is concerned. It was religion which prevented science for at least 1500 years. Had Einstein lived in one of those times practicing his art, he would have endured the same fate as Galileo or worse Giordano Bruno. Science absolutely does not need religion; it can create its own auras of wonder through its discoveries...not least, simply through observation.

Aside from the theories, his philosophical musings are of no consequence.

Are we really destined to live a life as either a blind or lame person?

Within the given context, “a blind or lame person” is first and foremost an unthinking one who uncritically depends on the thought patterns of others as “creditors” for his own existential views. It denotes a person who borrows perpetually to glean some value while providing very little for himself.

Technology as an expression of objective human values

No idea what technology has to do with human values! It’s just a way of putting things together to create a function whether it be simple or complex.

Or put another way, technology, as in this instance, allows you to express your values without being an expression of them. Based on your statement, you’re not aware of the difference.

[Nick_A]

Nick, it's reason that transforms reactive emotions into good feelings.

No. That is the function of good scotch, not reason.

[seeds]

Do you agree with or deny what Einstein describes as the necessary unification of intellectual and emotional intellignce to acquire human understanding?

What pray is it supposed to be “unified” into? Psychology is not physics or cosmology. That there should be a proper “balance” between intellect and the emotions has long, long, very long been understood before Einstein ever trod planet earth! It’s obviously a trained intellect that must supervise the emotions as essential to understanding based on reason.


Quote: Einstein
science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

I don’t regard Einstein as an additional member of the Trinity as so many seem to. This statement is merely clever but lame where reality is concerned. It was religion which prevented science for at least 1500 years. Had Einstein lived in one of those times practicing his art, he would have endured the same fate as Galileo or worse Giordano Bruno. Science absolutely does not need religion; it can create its own auras of wonder through its discoveries...not least, simply through observation.

Aside from the theories, his philosophical musings are of no consequence.

Are we really destined to live a life as either a blind or lame person?

Within the given context, “a blind or lame person” is first and foremost an unthinking one who uncritically depends on the thought patterns of others as “creditors” for his own existential views. It denotes a person who borrows perpetually to glean some value while providing very little for himself.

Technology as an expression of objective human values

No idea what technology has to do with human values! It’s just a way of putting things together to create a function whether it be simple or complex.

Or put another way, technology, as in this instance, allows you to express your values without being an expression of them. Based on your statement, you’re not aware of the difference.

Dubious, I believe you meant to cite Nick_A in this post and not me.
______

[Nick_A]

Dubious

”Nick_A” wrote:
Do you agree with or deny what Einstein describes as the necessary unification of intellectual and emotional intellignce to acquire human understanding?

Dubious replied:

What pray is it supposed to be “unified” into? Psychology is not physics or cosmology. That there should be a proper “balance” between intellect and the emotions has long, long, very long been understood before Einstein ever trod planet earth! It’s obviously a trained intellect that must supervise the emotions as essential to understanding based on reason.

You seem to take a dim view of the value of emotions. I agree as far as our normal quality of emotional intelligence. For example secular intolerance is a misguided negative emotional reaction that promotes spirit killing. Nothing to brag about with this. However there is another side to the question of emotional intelligence. Do you believe that humanity has the capacity for an objective conscious experience? If so, does a human being have the potential for the objective experience of "value" through conscience? Is conscience man made or the awareness of universal values?

“Labor to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire called conscience.”― Jacob Needleman, The American Soul

“Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.” ~ Einstein

“There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must take it because conscience tells him it is right.”
― Martin Luther King Jr., A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings

“Through pride we are ever deceiving ourselves. But deep down below the surface of the average conscience a still, small voice says to us, something is out of tune. ”
― C.G. Jung

The cosmic man would respond to objective conscience and technology would support objective conscience. Obviously it isn't the case and I am writing theoretically. Does conscience for you reflect something objectively real or is it just another word for conditioned morality?

[Dubious]

Dubious, I believe you meant to cite Nick_A in this post and not me.
______

Yes! Sorry about that. I knew it was Nick! No idea why I mentioned you except to say it was one of those brain farts that went in opposite directions!

[seeds]

_______

Belinda, I’m not sure if you missed this post or simply ignored it, but just in case you missed it, here it is again:

I do understand how people become attached to moral principles. I don't understand how the God-belief survives in this modern time when there is a better alternative.

Belinda, what exactly is the “better alternative”?

_______